Discontent

With a blistering thrash style reminiscent of 1980’s Southern Cali bands with wailing guitars, Discontent burns through their topics with sheer abandon, with just a bit of dark artful ambience tossed here and there (think early TSOL guitar tones), like the exquisite "Alone." It delves into dire shattered dreams, lives going down the tubes soaked in alcohol, being gutter bound, stuck on welfare, and locked in the ugly world. It questions why it all happens, and the mock-evil vocal embellishments at the end give the impression of a horror story unfolding.



“Discontent” is fast-as-fuck and more furiously paced, but still nimble and well-executed, not unlike Articles of Faith, as they explore the lives of dissatisfaction and furious feelings. They bemoan a grim existence that creates a cage around people, mazes that allow no easy way out, and people who end up on their knees, exposed, vulnerable, and aching for more. It’s a wake-up call to a rough reality, a reminder to stop burying one’s head in the sand, and an encouragement to use anger as a mechanism and engine for change.



Plundering bass and chopping guitar deliver the 110 MPH "Contemporary America," which is frenetic and unstoppable until its smoky lounge jazznik ending and haunting audio clips. With force and focus, they explode and explore the woes of modern America, from the thousands of conspiracies to the body bags produced by a rampant gun culture, not to forget the immigrant kids in cages, flags waving with slogans like “Don’t Tread on Me,” clichés about Lady Liberty, and the walking dead – the mindless sheep that are de-volving every minute into a passive blob.



“Ghost” speaks in more general and abstract terms about needing, wanting, and desiring something more than a life in which we are forced to crawl among the ghosts. They suggest one forceful proposition – never chain yourself to the past, with its rampant mistakes, misgivings, excuses, and lies. The future is unwritten. Remake and free yourself, they seem to urge.



Though this is merely an EP, it hits above its weight class, offers up a sonic landscape of thrash frenzy – sizzling guitar meltdowns, drums that sounds like machine guns at times, vocals that keep it all fiercely focused, and compositions that avoid boilerplate, play-by-numbers, humdrum routines and instead add dollops of noise, mystery, and crackle. They are scorching and undeniably smart.